The Penelopiad Characters

Penelope

Penelope is the protagonist of the Penelopiad. She is from Sparta. She is royalty: her father is King Icarius of Sparta and her mother is a Naiad (water deity). Penelope appears in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which recount the events of the Trojan war and Odysseus's famed journey back to Ithaca following the war. Penelope is known for her fidelity to Odysseus during his decade-long departure. In the Penelopiad, Penelope explains her point of view on this faithfulness, as well as the pain and frustration it brought her. She asks, "hadn't I been faithful? Hadn't I waited, and waited, despite the temptation—almost the compulsion—to do otherwise?" (2).

Penelope is also famous for her intelligence and circumspection. While Odysseus is away, Penelope has many suitors that try to marry her and thus take control of her kingdom. To stave off the suitors, Penelope tells the suitors that she will find someone to marry as soon as she is finished working on a shroud for her father-in-law, King Laertes. However, every night, she undoes her work of the previous day, thus delaying her deadline until Odysseus returns home.

Penelope discusses her legacy in the Penelopiad: "I was smart, though considering the times, very smart. That seems to be what I was known for: being smart. That, and my weaving, and my devotion to my husband, and my discretion" (21). In the Penelopiad, we get to know Penelope in a new light. Margaret Atwood's version of Penelope is witty (at times even sardonic), thoughtful, intuitive, and—most importantly—powerful.

Odysseus

Odysseus is Penelope's husband. Odysseus is the son of King Laertes of Ithaca and Anticlea (whose grandfather was Hermes, the messenger of the gods). Odysseus becomes the king of Ithaca when he returns from the Trojan war.

Odysseus appears in the Iliad and is the hero of the Odyssey. In the Iliad, which recounts the events of the Trojan War, Odysseus is bound by honor to fight Troy alongside Melenaus (King of Sparta) when Melenaus's wife, Helen, is seduced by Paris, the Prince of Troy. Odysseus is one of the most important warriors in the Trojan war. His effort to return home following the war is chronicled in the Odyssey, in which Odysseus faces many fantastic and mythical obstacles that derail his journey home.

As recounted in the Penelopiad, Odysseus goes to Sparta seeking Penelope's hand in marriage and beats the other suitors in a foot race to do so. He is famously crafty, intelligent, scheming, and brave. This is shown by the fact that he rigs the race for Penelope's hand by drugging the other contestants with a chemical that makes them slower.

Odysseus is not a good husband to Penelope. He gives little thought to Penelope's feelings on his journey, nor the difficult position he leaves her in, having to lead a kingdom on her own. Penelope criticizes her husband: "He got away with everything, which was another of his specialties: getting away" (2).

Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks (and the other eleven maids)

Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks is one of Penelope's twelve young maids in Ithaca. They spy on the suitors for Penelope and help her unweave her shroud every night. When Odysseus returns from his journey, he has Telemachus kill them for sleeping with the suitors. In the Penelopiad, Atwood makes it clear that they did not have a choice in the matter and were most probably raped.

The twelve maids appear as a chorus line in the Penelopiad in order to tell their story. Through these chapters, they show the disadvantages that they faced because of their lower class. Because they were slaves, their bodies and labor were seen as being available for use by the higher class. They lament, "[w]e were told we were dirty. We were dirty. Dirt was our concern, dirt was our business, dirt was our specialty, dirt was our fault. We were the dirty girls. If our owners or the sons of our owners or a visiting nobleman or the sons of a visiting nobleman wanted to sleep with us, we could not refuse" (14).

The maids are not completely powerless within the Penelopiad. They are witty and sardonic when telling their version of events. They also exert their agency within the castle and learn how to use the ways they are victimized to their advantage: "We swayed our hips, we lurked, we winked, we signaled with our eyebrows, even when we were children; we met boys behind the pigpens, noble boys and ignoble boys alike" (14).

King Icarius

King Icarius of Sparta is Penelope's father. When Penelope was very young, he ordered her to be thrown into the sea.

Penelope's mother (unnamed)

Penelope's mother is a Naiad (a divine freshwater spirit). She is a flighty mother who is not very attentive to Penelope—she would much prefer to be in the water than to be raising her child on land. Penelope notes that her mother "stopped swimming around like a porpoise long enough to attend [her] wedding" (43). Other than that, she does not have much of a presence in Penelope's life.

Helen

Helen is Penelope's cousin. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, who conceived and gave birth to Helen while she was in the form of a swan. Helen's father is also King Tyndareus, Leda's husband.

Helen is married to King Melenaus of Sparta. However, Aphrodite (the Greek goddess of love) promises her to Paris, the prince of Troy. Paris goes to Sparta and seduces Helen, convincing her to leave with him for Troy. This causes the Trojan war, as Melenaus calls upon his allies to wage war against Troy. When Melenaus' men win and Troy falls, Helen convinces Melenaus to take her back, and she remains married to him for the rest of her life.

In Atwood's version of events, Helen is a malicious man-eater who gets great pleasure in seeing how much damage she can cause with her beauty. She is mean to Penelope for having inferior beauty and proud of the great number of men who have died in her name.

Autolycus

Autolycus is Odysseus's grandfather. He is known as a liar and a cheat. As Penelope notes, he "was reputed never to have won anything fairly in his life" (31).